Youtube Reigns

What is Multimedia?

Multimedia is said to be a computer-based interactive communications process that incorporates text, graphics, sound, animation and video.

Websites such as Youtube, Yahoo! Video, Fancast, Hulu and Mega Videos are a few more popular examples of multimedia websites.

The basis and identity of multimedia websites is the keyword: Interactive.

Two other ways to determine a multimedia website is firstly, the user is the one who will decide what content is delivered, and how, and when it is delivered. Second, it must be an information processing devide, such as the computer and many electronic devices, are the ones mainly used to play, record, or generally access multimedia content, though multimedia can also be part of a live performance.

Multimedia websites are getting extremely popular have been widely used by people of all ages because it has helped and enhance people in are in use of these 4 major categories: Entertainment, Education, Corporate Communications & Reference. Let's look at these factors briefly:

How Multimedia helped Entertainment?

- Games, actions and vibrant graphics

- Action and interesting story-telling

- Highly interactive and keep intrigue audience easily

- Users are not passive but actively participate in controlling the application.

How Multimedia helped Education?

- Accomodates different learning style (as some students may be more visual learners rather than just traditional auditory.

- Enable the provision of feedbacks

- Help enhance non-linear presentations

How Multimedia helped Corporate Communications?

- Attact attention to a message instantly (with graphics, loud colours, captivating words)

- Enable online published magazines

- Enable browsing or product catalog online to be done in a more sophisticated manner.

How Multimedia helped References?

- Census data

- Interactive dictionaries (enable word pronouciations and renactments)

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It was revealed earlier this year that the Top 10 multimedia websites are:

So why is Youtube so successful that it has it's edge over the other competitions by a large extend?

Let's understand Youtube's history a little, when it just started out.

YouTube became the Internet phenomenon of 2006, in the sense of a site, idea or arguable ‘meme' that spreads with extreme speed due to the size and/or often social interconnectedness of the internet.
YouTube is the fourth most visited website, and the first if we do not include search engines (see Figure 1).

Also, if we look at the Web ratings by country, we realize that YouTube is also quite popular, for instance, it is the 5th most accessed site in the US, Portugal and Spain, the 6th in Canada and Japan and the 8th in the UK.

Here are 3 simple and straightforward reasons why is Youtube SO GOOD!

Uploading:

Everything to Flash video.
Plays everywhere. No platform issues here. YouTube sucks up whatever format your video is in and transcodes it to Flash.

Watching:

Videos play by themselves.
The easiest activity is the one most done. Ever notice that YouTube videos play without you doing anything? Talk about making the primary purpose of the site easy…it just happens. I love this.

Sharing:

Super sharing features.
YouTube has always had great sharing features. They include the code to share on your blog right alongside the video. Again, you don’t have to do anything for the code to be there. You just copy it, and it just works.

I highly suggest that Youtube is so successful because it really works.

Looking at the other multimedia websites on the list, it is true that half of them usually stop playing halfway, or the video is extremely blurred.

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Well, that's it for Multimedia and it's unlimited uses. I shall end off with this hilarious video of binocular soccer! ENJOY!